“Chris Kelly will be out indefinitely after breaking his left tibia in the second period of Monday’s game against the Ottawa Senators.”

Kelly has skated in 23 games this season and has registered two goals and four assists with 12 penalty minutes.

According to the Boston Globe, doctors needed to wait for swelling in Kelly’s knee to subside before issuing a definitive diagnosis. It did, and they did.

Kelly is third among Bruins forwards in shorthanded ice time at 2:25 per game. He’s a dependable faceoff guy (60.6 percent) who anchored the third line, a role Rich Peverley took on in Tuesday night’s loss at the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Joe Haggerty sees this as the end of Kelly’s regular season, considering the six-week rehab timeline associated with the injury. If so, one wonders how this changes things for Chiarelli at the trade deadline, having lost a valuable role player that thrived during the Bruins’ last Cup run.